Want+Fries?

=Want Fries With That?=

Marilyn Bender mjb63@toast.net Jane Tutein jptutein@comcast.net



Instructional Objective
This game is designed to reinforce players' knowledge of safe food handling practices and standards.

Learners & Context of Use
The game is designed for new hires working in a food service environment. New hires are age 16 to adults, have grade 11 education or higher; and speak and read English. The food service environment includes fast food restaurants as well as cafeteria settings in schools, businesses, hospitals and nursing homes.

Players should be introduced to safe food handling practices and standards before they play the game. They will get this information in new hire orientation sessions. The game can be played as a review exercise in during class or outside of class time.

Competing Products
An internet search using "food safety games" located four food safety games and activities that covered the same content and targeted adult food handlers however none were board games. We found three jeopardy style games and one bingo style game. Each of these games are similar to our board game in that players need to successfully answer food safety questions to win but the game mechanics are different. Jeopardy and Bingo style games reward and penalize players based on speed of recalling information. Our game does not reward or penalize players based on time but rather levels the playing field by giving players time to answer questions. It also offers more control to players by taking turns to roll the die and move on the board. In addition, the game offers more unpredictability with choice and hazard spaces and Inspector cards, which helps to keep players interested. The game also gives players the opportunity to use strategy if they land on a choice space. Another advantage of our game is flexibility. It can be played as a board game with individual players or teams of players, and the challenge cards can be used on their own in a jeopardy style game.

**Object of the Game**
The player who is first to land on the Finish square wins the game.

Content Analysis
Want Fries Content Analysis

Game Materials

 * Game Board
 * 6 player tokens
 * A six-sided die
 * Yellow Level 1 Challenge cards (24)
 * Blue Level 2 Challenge cards (24)
 * Inspector cards (24)

 **Game Board** - Link to Want Fries game board image The board resembles the floor plan of a kitchen, front line and dining area with a path of 44 spaces going through the different parts of the floor plan. The path begins on the Start space and ends on a Finish space. There are five types of spaces on the path:
 * 1. Yellow Challenge Question Space || [[image:YellowQuestSpace.png]] ||
 * 2. Blue Challenge Question Space || [[image:BlueQuestSpace.png]] ||
 * 3. Inspector Space || [[image:InspectorSpace.png]] ||
 * 4. Hazard Space || [[image:EnvHazSpace.png]] ||
 * 5. Choice Space || [[image:ChanceSpace.png]] ||

** 1 Game Board - Use color printer to print four (8 1/2 by 11) pages in PDF file and assemble into 17 by 22 game board - [|FriesGameBoard.pdf]
 * Print the Following Five Documents to Play The Game

6 Player Tokens (Print page, cut out six tokens and attach to binder clips) - [|FriesPeopleTokens.doc]

24 Yellow Challenge Question Cards (Print with color printer or use yellow paper) - [|YellowChallengeCards.doc]

24 Blue Challenge Question Cards (Print with color printer or use blue paper) - [|BlueChallengeCards.doc]

24 Inspector Cards - [|InspectorCards.doc]

Time Required
Setup Time - The game will take less than 5 minutes to set up. The board is opened, the Inspector and 2 sets of Challenge cards are shuffled and placed in piles (Q&A side down) on the board where indicated. The tokens are distributed to players and the die placed on the board.

Playing Time - Game time is 45 - 60 minutes with 2 - 6 players. The game ends when the first player reaches the Finish square.

The Rules
1. Each player rolls the die. The player with the highest number begins playing by rolling first.

2. The starting player rolls the die and moves his or her token the corresponding X spaces on the board.

3. If the player lands on a:
 * Yellow challenge space,[[image:YellowQuestSpace.png]], the opponent to the player's left pulls a card from the yellow challenge card pile and reads a multiple choice question. If the player answers the question correctly, the player will advance the number of spaces indicated on the card, (one or two spaces). If the player answers incorrectly, the player moves backwards the number of spaces indicated on the card. The game resumes with the next player unless the player advances or moves back to an inspector space or a hazard space. Any time a player lands on an inspector space or a hazard space, the player complies with the consequences.


 * Blue challenge space, [[image:BlueQuestSpace.png]], the opponent to the player's left pulls a card from the blue challenge card pile and reads reads an open question or multiple part answer type question to the player. If the player answers the question correctly, the player will advance the number of spaces indicated on the card, (three to five spaces). If the player answers incorrectly, the player moves backwards the number of spaces indicated on the card. The game resumes with the next player unless the player advances or moves back to an inspector space or a hazard space. Any time a player lands on an inspector space or a hazard space, the player complies with the consequences.


 * Inspector space, [[image:InspectorSpace.png]], the opponent to the player's left draws a card from the inspector pile and reads the card aloud. The card will either be an award or a penalty of spaces to the player depending on the nature of the health inspector's finding.


 * Choice space, [[image:ChanceSpace.png]], the player may choose from the easy yellow challenge cards, or the more difficult blue challenge cards. The player may also chose an inspector card or choose to give an inspector card to another player. The opponent on the player's left will read the card the player chooses.


 * Hazard space, [[image:EnvHazSpace.png]],the player complies with the consequences written on the space.

4. After a question or inspector card has been read, return it to the bottom of the pile from which it was drawn.

5. The first player to land on the Finish space wins the game.

Alternative Game Set-up and Rules
If it is not feasible to allow time away from the work setting for employees to play the board game version of "Do you want fries with that?" an alternative version can be played with a crew in the food service area during a scheduled working shift.

The yellow and blue challenge cards are shuffled together and read to the players by the shift coordinator. Instead of the game board, a scorecard: [|AltFriesScoreCard.doc], is used which can be placed on a clip board or hung on a wall. The game board, the inspector cards, the player tokens and the die are not used. The awarding of, and loss of spaces indicated on the challenge cards are ignored.
 * Materials**

The shift coordinator directs the game. He or she can pace the game by asking questions throughout the shift and taking breaks in the game when customers are present. The shift coordinator calls "game on!" draws a card from the top of the pile of challenge cards and asks the next player the question. If the player answers the question correctly, the coordinator marks a star in the star column by the player's name. If the player answers incorrectly, the coordinator marks an "X" in the x column by the player's name. The first player to earn six stars before earning six "x's" advances to the winners circle, wins the round and is awarded a prize. Multiple rounds can be played over the course of weeks to ensure all crew members have the opportunity to review the food safety material.
 * Game Play**

Motivational Issues
When applying Keller's ARCS model of motivation to game play, Keller and Suzuki (1988) describe the first element to be attention. Game play can provide an effective method of reinforcing job training by arousing ** attention ** and engaging learners in an activity that holds his or her interest. //Want Fries With That// gets players attention due to the uncertainty of knowing the answers to the challenge questions and unexpected outcomes of inspector cards, which can have negative, neutral and positive outcomes. Challenge questions are also used to stimulate players' cognitive **curiosity** according Malone and Lepper (1980) who hypothesize that people's curiosity can be stimulated if they believe their knowledge structure is incomplete. Relevance, the second element of the ARCS model, is directly addressed by the fact that the game content, food safety, is a key job competency of the target audience, and is **r** elevant to their present and future job performance requirements. Keller and Suzuki (1988) also describe the process aspect of relevance as teaching methods that relate to the learner's need satisfaction. Our analysis of the target audience revealed that learners liked **competition** so we made sure that //Want Fries With That// is a competitive race game to satisfy the learners need for competition. Players need challenge but they must also feel ** confident **** (third element of ARCS) ** that the challenge is within their reach and success is possible. For this reason, there are two levels of difficulty in the form of challenge cards. Challenge spaces are arranged on the board to allow for initial successes. Yellow challenge cards are multiple-choice questions, which are easier to answer. The blue challenge cards are short answer-type questions and provide more challenge. There are more yellow challenge spots in the beginning of the game than blue challenge spots. As the game progresses, there are more blue than yellow. The intent is to change the difficulty level slightly as the game progresses in order to maintain the player's interest as novelty wears off.

According to Malone and Lepper (1988), learning environments that offer **control** motivate players. This game engages players because they control their outcome by their responses to challenge questions. //What Fries With That// also gives players control through choice spaces, which allow the player to choose a yellow challenge card, a blue challenge card or an inspector card to give to another player. This gives them power to influence the game rather then having their progress be only a matter of chance. By choosing among yellow or blue cards, a player is able to choose the level of risk and reward and thereby attempt to influence his or her standing in the game. Choosing to give an inspector card to another player creates the probability of setting the other player back several spaces and thereby improving his or her relative standing in the game.
 * The awarding of extra spaces for correct answers provides **** satisfaction ****(fourth element of ARCS) for players ** . When a player answers correctly, he or she moves forward on the board. If the player is wrong, he or she moves backward on the board. The level of risk and reward is somewhat predictable by way of yellow cards VS. blue cards. There are also some elements of unpredictability by way of choice spaces and inspector spaces, which appeal to the competitive nature of the players. Players are motivated by an intrinsic desire to advance and win the game.

Design Process
The initial game idea came from a request for help from a family member who works in food service and has a need to re-certify all of her employees in food safety within a short period of time and during a very busy work shift. This "customer" was interviewed as a subject matter expert to help us identify learning objectives, content focus areas and to provide insight into the characteristics of members of our target audience. We concluded that the constraints of her situation and environment did not lend itself to a board game. The solution for her needs was an alternative design complete with the same challenge questions but with a scorecard instead of a game board. **Note:** See the alternative game play and rules section for details on the alternative design play and scorecard. Although our needs assessment conclusion revealed that the best solution for our customer's needs did not meet the objectives of our board game project, we were able to gain valuable insight into the content and context of the food service environment and we validated the competitive and fun seeking nature of our target audience. We started the design process by completing a content analysis and weaving contextual elements into development of game components. For example, we decided the game board should reflect the floor plan of a fast food restaurant/cafeteria and game tokens would either be food images (hot dogs, fries, soft drinks) or staff (cashier, server, chef). We decided to include two levels of content challenge questions and inspector cards to introduce multiple levels of risk and reward. Hazard and Choice spaces provide an element of randomness to impact a player's standing in the game. The Choice spaces also give a player the ability to influence the fortune of another player by choosing to pass an Inspector card to another player which has the probability of setting that player back considerable number of spaces. Content for challenge questions was gathered from our customer's policy material and from an internet search of food safety regulations. Content for Inspector cards was found in the newspaper from published findings of health inspection reports for local restaurants.

We explored websites of food safety training companies, US and Canadian agricultural agencies, and universities to see if there were any board games dealing with the topic of food safety but did not find any published board games. We found that the government agencies safe food handling education was targeted at K-12 schools and included some web-based games similar to Wheel of Fortune. We also found that two universities had PowerPoint jeopardy-style games that could be downloaded and used for adult training.

Collaborative discussions between the team members fleshed out ideas for game play. After producing the prototype material, each team member conducted a play test with a small group and we used the feedback to refine the design. We changed the board to reduce clutter and make the path to the finish easier to follow. We changed the Yellow challenge cards to award an additional space in order to speed up game play. We also edited the rules to add clarity and corrected some typos. Our initial play testing showed that players had fun with the game even though they were not familiar with the content. A second round of testing by two classmates provided additional feedback about the rules, game length, Inspector card content, and open-ended questions on Blue challenge cards. We updated the rules to address questions about who asks challenge questions and how to handle question cards after they have been played. Our initial round of testing validated the game length so decided not to adjust number of board spaces. We considered the suggestion of adding more non-violation Inspector cards but decided to keep the ratio of two-thirds violation to one-third non-violation scenarios because the violation scenarios are important teaching tools since they list the violation and provide the solution. In regards to the feedback about whether other players can determine if an answer to an open-ended question is correct if it doesn't match the answer on the card, we concluded that players will have reference resources on-hand to make that determination. These resources are available from the food safety training classes they complete.

The first lesson learned is that needs assessment is just as important for designing a game as it is for designing other educational materials and events. The data we collected from our needs assessment with an actual "customer" informed our initial design and gave us confidence about our design decisions. Another lesson learned is that it is important to play test early in the process to validate the design and game elements. Our initial test with two separate groups provided useful feedback on things to fix but more importantly validated our ideas and proved to us that the game was fun even though the content was "dry". A third lesson learned is that it is possible to design a game dealing with any subject matter.

**Electronic**

 * Safe Food Handlers Corporation. //Food manager practice exam.// Retrieved October 3, 2008 from: http://www.sfhcorp.com/SFH_2004/pages/PracticeExam.htm
 * Klein, S.B., //Food safety by the numbers// //game//, Retrieved October 3, 2008 from Iowa State University Extension School website: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/NR/rdonlyres/2A1C0F83-8D20-45CD-B516-D6AA946576E7/13576/foodsafety_game.pdf